Head of CRM & Marketing Automation at Mountainise
Certified CRM Consultant with 10+ years of experience in Salesforce, HubSpot, and Marketing Cloud implementations.
Driving digital transformation in higher education is no small task. Educational institutions are tasked with increasing operational efficiency. Enriching the student experience increases faculty potential and builds meaningful relationships with alumni. While Salesforce offers robust tools to support these goals, the path to effective implementation can be complex and challenging.
The value of a Salesforce implementation partner in California for higher education is evident here. These partners bring specialized knowledge and understand the unique dynamics of educational settings. They work closely with institutions not just to set up a system, but to customize solutions that align with specific needs and goals.
The digital transformation process for educational institutions is different from the rest. While many businesses opt for sophisticated CRM tools such as Salesforce for managing revenues and interactions with customers, educational institutions have specific objectives that go beyond conventional business inclinations.
This includes improving student experience, assisting teachers, and engaging alumni, all while ensuring that these remain non-sales oriented and transactional. Much to plan for, engaging a Expert Salesforce implementation partner is not a tactical decision but a game-changer, in managing the delivery of the project successfully, as it takes away fears of overwhelming tasks. This particular article aims to explain the necessity of the relevance of the implementing partner, and how it can affect the performance of the digitization process within the educational institutions very deeply.
In contrast to all other businesses, which are mainly focused on revenues and management of the pipeline, schools and colleges have a broader mandate that includes students’ well-being, faculty, alumni, and many others. In this way the CRM system and the centralized database has to encompass much more than purely operational transactions.
Here’s where it gets challenging: a student complaint or escalation is not just another customer service ticket. Furthermore, it tends to have academic, emotional, and even professional repercussions in the future which means people need to be more intelligent and sensitive in such situations.
The purpose of Salesforce implementation Services in the education sector goes beyond setting up a proper enrollment and admissions management tool. There is also the need to provide various inter-departmental interactions and management functions for lecturers, student advisors, and administrative officers. The system ought to promote a connected campus that enhances cooperativeness, effectiveness, and a “students first culture”. This is where a number of institutions particularly get it wrong: many do not take the complexity into account and do not have a strategic plan for embarking on the project.
What’s more, one of the greatest mistakes that educational institutions make is to assume that they are capable of implementing Salesforce for higher education by themselves without the support of a qualified expert. Yes, the internal teams know the institution processes and the objectives; however, they do not have the necessary skills that are needed in defining the scope, management, and maintenance of a Salesforce project.
Here are several reasons why engaging an CRM implementation partner can be pivotal:
Specialized agencies such as Mountainise are capable of transforming the very core of educational institutions. Since these agencies specialize in not just deploying Salesforce solutions, but also developing the operational plan for the institution. Here are several reasons why engaging an implementation partner can be pivotal:
The first two phases of the project involve a Salesforce implementation partner in San Francisco providing high-level planning and architecture support. They assist in delineating the project scope in relation to institutional targets, the students’ needs and features within the institution. This allows them to determine from the onset what tools and features the institution should procure as well as the need for customization that would render future upgrades and maintenance difficult.
There are various ways that have been established to help in narrowing the scope of the internal business processes one could employ. Even with such targets, configuring these solutions to the peculiar workflows of an institution remains a tall order. Adequate time is spent on prospective clients acquiring these solutions, but how does one configure them to fit the institution’s needs? Configuring these systems is where expert partners come in. They have already experienced how systems are used in other institutions and can use that to customize the parameters to meet the required standards.
Institutions or educational organizations are highly likely to own even more than one application at a time which can be a student management, learning management, or even a financial aid application. A Salesforce implementation partner ensures seamless Salesforce integration with these existing platforms and makes it easy as a platform where all data is in one place. This unification in data is important in the development of integrated reports and at the same time suggests an improved decision making ability which is strategic in nature.
The qualified partners, being multidimensional in their experience, can deliver projects in far shorter times than an internal team may be able to achieve. They have established methodologies and best practices available to them that cut down the time for learning and the trials and errors that are normally undertaken. This speeds up the time duration of the project and allows the institutions to start realizing the gains that are associated with the new CRM System.
Outsourcing an expert partner can seem as a cost but the investment can reduce time and the financial drain to the institution by hundreds of man-hours over the period. Well scoped and executed plans avoid expensive revisions and recreations, getting things done late and use of money unnecessarily on things not needed. Also, when users are quickly trained and the systems rolled out, it is almost inevitable that the returns on Investment shall be high.
Based on working for some top educational institutions in the US, it is evident that the repercussions of a poorly thought out Salesforce deployment are unfortunate. A number of organizations that went for digitization for the first without the appropriate capacity faced seemingly unending project timelines and tremendous costs. Some organizations had to abandon their projects halfway due to unresolvable problems, while some ended up with a minimalistic model that was not able to accrue larger objectives.
On the other hand, those organizations that engaged professional firms were able to execute the implementation in an orderly manner and according to the plan without any major deviations. These organizations were able to use the connectors that were created to link their CRM with Marketing Cloud and data exchange between internal departments improved cross departmental communication and engagement.
As an example, one particular university that contracted Mountainise to implement some CRM systems noted a much shorter time taken to put in place the system as well as lesser operational lapses in the provision of this service. The university was able to concentrate on its knowledge generation and retention, that is student retention, relationship building with alumni and many more, instead of focusing on absorption of new technology.
Choosing a Salesforce implementation partner for higher education can be a lengthy process. However, a number of important questions have to be asked when selecting possible partners. Those include:
Choose a partner who really has experience in the implementation of projects in the industry. The partner needs to be knowledgeable on how educational institutions work and their past implementations should be successful.
Remember that the partner should be able to offer a strategy, realize it and even offer training and other relevant services. This is important as it means that the company will be able to accommodate your institution whenever it comes to your digital growth.
Do look for partners who are able to provide evidence of success in the form of case studies and endorsements from other colleges and other educational institutions. These examples depict how the partner is able to work and what the relative returns would be.
A plan cannot be carried out successfully in the absence of good communication. The role of the partner is expected to be very well coordinated with the other stakeholders so that the objectives of the project are in sync throughout its lifecycle.
In the end, select a partner that shares the same ideals and culture as your institute. It is easier to collaborate with a partner who has the same culture as the organization, which eventually leads to a better working relationship.
The process of digital transformation in education is quite multidimensional and cannot be achieved with mere technological skills. It is indeed true that Salesforce possesses all the capabilities that can change the very nature of the functioning of the educational institutions but the change is what really matters. Education institutes can achieve this change through partnering with a capable Salesforce implementation partner in California like Mountainise which provides them the right mix of strategy, technology, and industry knowledge to turn challenges into opportunities.
The right partner adds value in terms of timely completion, reduced costs, quicker adoption, and most importantly, the final solution is one that enables the faculty, enhances the student experience and promotes a cohesive campus. Institutions making this investment are likely to have a comparative advantage in many ways especially in responding to the challenges of the digital world and making changes in education that lasts.
Ready to take your digital transformation to the next level with Salesforce CRM? At Mountainise, we’re proud to be your Salesforce education implementation partner, dedicated to understanding your unique challenges and helping you achieve your goals.
Let’s connect for a free consultation where we can talk about your vision and how we can create a tailored solution that empowers your faculty, enriches the student experience, and builds a more connected campus community.
Schedule your free working session with Mountainise today! Together, we can unlock the true potential of your institution and shape a brighter future for education!
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